Morocco has climbed from third position in the 2009/2010 ranking to become the top African Country of the Future 2011/12. South Africa was placed second, followed closely by Mauritius in third.

Morocco’s success in claiming the top position in the 2011/12 ranking is partly down to its success in attracting FDI projects. According to the specialist FDI database, fDiMarkets, the number of FDI projects into both South Africa and Egypt (positioned first and second in the 2009/2010 ranking) declined, whereas the number of FDI projects into Morocco was up 8% in 2010 – one of few countries in the region to experience an increase in the number of FDI projects in 2010.  

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Morocco was also awarded the top position in the Infrastructure and FDI Strategy categories.

South Africa slips

South Africa dropped to second position in this year's ranking, but despite witnessing a 13% decline in the number of FDI projects into the country in 2010, the latest figures released by fDiMarkets confirm that South Africa remains the number one destination country for FDI into the region between January and May 2011.

South Africa ranked in the top three of various categories including: Economic Potential, Infrastructure, Human Resources, Business Friendliness and FDI Strategy.

Mauritius overtakes Egypt

Egypt fell from second position to fourth overall in the 2011/12 ranking. According to fDiMarkets, the country experienced a 30% decline in FDI projects in 2010 and is struggling to recover, attracting only 16 FDI projects between January and May 2011. Despite this decline, Egypt ranked top in the Economic Potential category, primarily due to the number of mega FDI projects locating in Egypt in comparison with other African countries since 2003.

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Mauritius moved up the ranking, climbing from fourth position to third overall in the 2011/12 ranking. Mauritius was awarded the top position in the Quality of Life category, climbing from fourth in this category in 2009/10.

fDi’s independent judging panel were impressed by the FDI Strategy submitted by Morocco and so awarded the country the top position in this category. It was followed closely by Mauritius in second, with South Africa, Ghana and Ethiopia completing the top five.

In the ranking, which took more than four months to compile and involved data collection from 59 countries, Rwanda was awarded the top position in regard to Cost Effectiveness, followed by Namibia and Zambia in second and third positions, respectively.

Methodology

fDi’s Countries of the Future shortlists are created by an independent collection of data by the fDiIntelligence division across 59 African countries. This information was set under six categories: Economic Potential, Human Resources, Cost Effectiveness, Quality of Life, Infrastructure, and Business Friendliness. A seventh category was added to the scoring – FDI Strategy. In this category, 13 countries submitted details about their promotion strategy and this was judged and scored by the independent judging panel.

Countries scored up to a maximum of 10 points under each individual criterion, which was weighted by importance to give the overall scores.

Notes

fDiMarkets is the only online database tracking crossborder greenfield investment covering all sectors and countries worldwide. It provides real-time monitoring of investment projects, capital investment and job creation with powerful tools to track and profile companies investing overseas. fDiBenchmark is the only online tool to benchmark the investment attractiveness of countries and cities in more than 55 sectors.

Its comprehensive location data series covers the main cost and quality competitiveness indicators for more than 350 locations around the world.

The fDiIntelligence division now consists of: fDiMagazine, fDiMarkets, fDiBenchmark, fDiAtlas and fDiReports.

fDiIntelligence compiled most of the data for the African Countries of the Future ranking, with the exception of the FDI Strategy. For this category information was submitted by individual countries and scored by fDi’s independent judging panel.

 Click on the link below for a PDF version of the complete results:

African_countries 384.21 kB
 

Download the African Countries of the Future 2011/12 Press Release here:

 

Download previous African Countries of the Future results here:

African Countries of the Future 2009/10

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